might as well talk of having a safe smoke over a pow- 

 der keg. 



What Other Settlers Do, Can Be Done Here. 



I recollect one day saying to my brother: "This 

 slash burning is bound to put some of us in the grave- 

 yard, if rain doesn't come before Saturday." 



He neither agreed nor disagreed. Through the 

 kitchen door I could see the clouds of smoke gathering 

 across the settlement. 



"You play with death," I warned, "every time you 

 start clearing fires in weather like this." 



"How else will the land get cleared?" my brother 

 asked. 



"They get it cleared just as quick in Quebec, Nova 

 Scotia and British Columbia, and most of the States," 

 I told him, "but they make the job a safe one. They 

 have a law that settlers can't start slash fires without 

 a written permit from a fire ranger. They can't start 

 a fire during drought, and what's more, they have to 

 pile their slash back from the timber. When that is 

 done, the settlers' families are not afraid of being 

 burned out every few. years and the newspapers don't 

 argue over the exact number of youngsters caught in 

 the flames." 



"A man in a new country must take chances" but 

 as my brother said that, his eye lighted upon his two 

 little girls, and his boast sounded pretty hollow. 



Well, you have all heard about that week end of 

 July, 1916 when with hardly an hour's warning, all 

 the innocent-looking bush fires joined forces and roared 

 down the country like the Day of Judgment. Fleeing 



